There are currently a wide variety of search engines and search tools that permit computer users to search for electronic information. Some search engines allow users to search general network-stored content. These and other search engines allow users to search narrower and/or other categories of information as well. For example, a search engine may allow users to search such categories as images, news, products for sale, etc. The search engine my further allow the user to search a category of the network-stored content organized by topic (e.g., art, business, computers, science, shopping, sports, etc.) or by various subcategories of content.
Different categories of search results and/or different topics of search results may be displayed to the user. One example may include a user interface having a plurality of search result groupings, such as columns, where each search result grouping is associated with a unique category and/or topic. The presentation of the categories in the user interface may be configured according to a wide variety of criteria, such as likelihood of applicability to a search term, previously selected categories of interest, etc. The configuration of columns may affect the likelihood that a user will select a link within any particular column.
Search engines generally allow sponsors to prominently display their links on search engine user interfaces using sponsored links. Sponsored links are search results that are provided based on the search results when users input search terms to a search engine. For example, if a visitor to the search engine enters the term “flowers,” search results that a sponsor believes may be relevant to someone searching for flowers are displayed. Sponsors generally pay the provider of the search engine a fee for the display of the search results. The search results appear as a result of sponsors bidding on particular search terms, such as “flowers.”
The bidding process is commonly managed by an intermediary, such as the search engine provider. Sponsors bid on search terms and submit search results associated with the search terms to the intermediary. The intermediary typically utilizes one or more engines for associating the search results with bids and search terms, keeping track of the highest bidders, scheduling, etc., and ensuring that at any given instance the search results corresponding to the highest bids are displayed when search terms matching the search terms are entered by the users of the search engine. Whenever a visitor clicks on a displayed search result, referred to herein as a “click event,” the intermediary charges the sponsor a fee. The intermediary also commonly monitors the “click-through” rate (e.g., how many users actually select or click on the displayed advertisement). In some cases, if the number of users clicking on the sponsored search result is too low, the sponsored search result will no longer be displayed, even if it is associated with the highest bid.
An ongoing challenge is to ensure that sponsors receive adequate value for the money they spend on sponsorship. It would be beneficial to sponsors to be able to focus their advertising spending to capture the value of a prominently displayed search result grouping. It should be understood that, although certain advantages are described, the teachings herein may be used to implement systems and methods that do not have any of these advantages but which have other advantages.